Just in case you’re wondering how the arts would fare under Bush’s slash and burn budget proposal, here’s news: NEA is targetted for a 15% increase…and NEH for a 19% increase. But apparently we can’t have science with our art (is science the new bugaboo? …Do stem cells trump piss Christ photographs in the homeland now?)
Read this news item from the Cornell website. We are in scary anti-intellectual times.
Here’s a few paragraphs that stand out about science:
Bush requested small increases to the two largest sources of federal funds for academic scientists, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). The NIH would get a 2.7 percent increase, to $28.8 billion; the NSF would get a 3 percent increase, to $5.7 billion.
This proposal comes after several years of healthy increases for NIH and NSF and includes increases below inflation for most science programs. Total science and technology spending would decline by 0.4 percent, to $60.4 billion, excluding Pentagon expenditures. Spending for science and technology programs at agencies other than the NIH would drop by 3 percent.
Here’s the news about the arts:
Funding for the arts and humanities fared substantially better than the sciences under the president’s proposal. The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) would receive a 15.2 percent increase, to $139.4 million, while the National Endowment for the Humanities would get a 19.7 percent increase, or $18.4 million, to $162 million. Most of the increase for the humanities would go to the agency’s American history program, aimed at increasing the understanding of American history and culture.
I’m so bummed.
(image is moon over my street on a dark and cloudy night. I thought it was kind of ominous.)
